• Imperial Peak and Decline
• The Scientific Revolution
  • The Enlightenment
• The Golden Age of Piracy
• The first global conflict

Losers:

• Habsburg dynasty in Austria and Spain
• Catholic Church
• the German peoples

Winners:

• Protestants across northern Europe
• Sweeden
• The Netherlands
• Bourbon dynasty in France

Ships of the Dutch East India Company at Table Bay, modern Cape Town, South Africa. Aernout Smit (1683)

An injured Charles XII following his defeat at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, headed into exile in the Ottoman Empire

King John III Sobieski at the Battle of Vienna, 12 September 1683. Painting by Juliusz Kossak (1882)

A "republic under the presidency of the king" governed by a constitution which enshrined certain political rights

Golden Liberty

• All nobles may participate in the free election of the king (10-15% of the total population, comprable to US elections before 1870)
• A parliament (Sejm) which must meet every two years
• A bill of rights (pacta conventa)
  • Guranteed religious toleration (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, Jews)
• The right to legal rebellion against a king who violated those rights
• liberum veto, any individual in the Sejm could nullify legislation

Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, 1633, where he was forced to publically recant his model of the heliocentric universe. By Cristiano Banti (1857)

• Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) an important exponent of empiricist philosophy and the "father" of the scientific method
• Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) invented modern physics (motion, gravity, optics, etc.)
• Maria Sybilla Merian (1647-1717) a German naturalist and illustrator who studied botany and small animals of South America

• Laura Bassi (1711-1778) an Italian physicist who was the second woman in the world to earn a PhD (1732) and became the first woman to chair a department, in experimental physics (1775)

• Royal Society, England (1660); Académie des sciences, France (1666); Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Prussia (1700)

• The Enlightenment was an important period for development of political, economic, and social thought as well
• John Locke (d. 1704) developed social contract theoty
• Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679) articulated ideas about the rights of individuals and the natural equality of all men
• Adam Smith (d. 1790), a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, pioneered modern study of economics
• Although the Enlightenment formed the intellectual inspiration to the American and French revolutions, it was not necessarily democratic
  • Absolute monarchs like Fredrick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Joseph II of Austria saw themselves as enlightened "philosopher kings" and patronized science and philosophy

John Calvin (d. 1564), a French Swiss theologian founded the Reformed movement, and Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679), an English political philosopher

• Battlefield medicine
  • barber surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510-1590)
• Artillery and geometry
• Star Fortresses ("Bastion fort")
  • Sloping walls
  • Elimination of "dead" zones
  • Enfilade (flanking) defences and interlocking fields of fire
  • Defence in depth
• Scientific ship design in the Age of Sail

A modern depiction of arquebusiers (soldiers armed with an arquebus, an early long gun) from the period of the English Civil

Now, at that time I was very inexperienced because I had not yet seen the treatment of wounds made by the arquebus; it is true that I had read in the first book of Jean de Vigo about wounds in general, chapter 8, that wounds made by firearms are poisoned because of the powder and for their cure he commands that they be cauterized with oil of elderberry to which a little treacle should be added. Not to fail in the use of this burning oil and knowing that such treatment could be extremely painful for the wounded, I wanted to know before I used it how the other surgeons carried out the first dressing; this they did by applying the said oil as nearly boiling as possible to the wounds using tents and setons so I plucked up courage to do likewise.

At last I ran out of oil and was constrained to apply a digestive made of egg yolk, oil of roses and turpentine. That night I could not sleep easily thinking that by the default in cautery I would find the wounded to whom I had failed to apply the said oil

dead of poisoning; and this made me get up at first light to visit them. Beyond my hopes I found those on whom I had put the digestive dressing feeling little pain from their wounds which were not swollen or inflamed, and having spent quite a restful night. But the others, to whom the said oil had been applied, I found fevered, with great pain and swelling around their wounds.

From then I resolved never again so cruelly to burn poor men wounded with arquebus shot.

Ambroise Paré, Ouvres (1575)

–

Group discussion: How was Paré guided in his initial treatments? What caused him to change? How does this illustrate the effects of the scientific revolution?

Fort Bourtange, Netherlands near the border with Germany, restored to as it appeared circa 1750

The citadel of Belgrade, containing some late antique and medieval elements, systematically upgraded by Austria 1724-27

El Morro, the fortress of San Juan, Puerto Rico, originating in the early 16th century but substantially rebuilt in 1765

Captian Henry Morgan attacking Panama in 1671. Illustration in the 1681 English translation of Alexandre Exquemelin, The Pirates of Panama

The ship being well victualled, they deliberate whither they shall go to seek their desperate fortunes, and likewise agree upon certain articles, which are put in writing, which every one is bound to observe. First, therefore, they mention how much the captain is to have for his ship; next, the salary of the carpenter. Afterwards, for provisions and victualling, they draw out of the same common stock about two hundred pieces of eight; also a salary for the surgeon, and his chest of medicaments. Lastly, they agree what rate each one ought to have that is either wounded or maimed in his body. All which sums are taken out of the common stock of what is gotten by their piracy, and a very exact and equal dividend is made of the remainder. They have also regard to qualities and places: thus the captain is allotted five or six portions, to what the ordinary seamen have: the master's mate only two, and other officers proportionately to their employ: after which, they draw equal parts from the highest to the lowest mariner.

They observe among themselves very good orders; for in the prizes which they take, it is severely prohibited, to every one, to take anything to themselves. If any one is found false to the said oath, he is immediately turned out of the society. They are very civil and charitable to each other; so that if any one wants what another has, with great willingness they give it one to another. As soon as these pirates have taken a prize, they immediately set ashore the prisoners, detaining only some few, for their own help and service: whom, also, they release, after two or three years.

Alexandre Exquemelin, The Pirates of Panama (1678), translated by G.A. Williams (1914), p. 39-40

–

Discussion questions: What philosophical parallels can you find with this contract? How does this eye-witness account compare with the pirates of myth and legend?

A battle between Dutch ships and Barbary Corsairs, Laureys a Castro, after 1681

• Every war pitted France (usually as a primary combattant) against England/GB/UK (usually entering as an ally to contain France).

• The "second hundred years war"
  • War of the League of Augsburg (1688-97)
  • War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
  • War of the Austrian Succession (1742-1748)
  • Seven Years' War (1756-1763)
  • American Revolution (1775-1783)
  • French Revolution (1792-1802)
  • Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)

The Battle of Fontenoy, 1745 (by Felix Philippoteaux, 1873), a decisive French victory over the British, Dutch, and Hannoverian alliance

The global span of the Seven Years War (a.k.a. the French and Indian War) 1756-1763

• Games
  • Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)
  • Age of Empires III (2005)
  • Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization (2008)
  • Empire: Total War (2009)
  • Assassin's Creed III (2012) and Assassin's Creed IV (2013)
  • Europa Universalis IV (2013), still relevant
• Movies
  • Pirates of the Caribbean (relevant-ish)
  • The Death of Louis XIV (2016)

Primary

• William Wycherly, The Country Wife (1675, film adaptation 1977)
• Captain Chalres Johnson, A General history of the Pyrates (1724)
• Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Secondary

• D.A. Baugh, The Global Seven Years War 1754-1763 (2011)
• W. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times (1933-8)
• M.C. Jacob, The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (2000)
• M.C. Jacob, The Scientific Revolution: A Brief History with Documents (2010)